The present invention generally relates to holders of portable devices and more particularly to an on-vehicle holder for use in vehicles for supplying electric power to a portable terminal device detachably mounted thereon.
Portable terminals are used extensively in these days for inventory control in stores or warehouses, delivery of parcels, inspection of meters such as water, gas or electricity, and the like. Such portable terminals generally include therein a rechargeable battery as a power source.
When delivering parcels, for example, a person on a delivery vehicle inputs various information to the portable terminal device on the site of delivery of the parcel. The information typically includes, although by no means limited, the destination of the delivered parcel, designation of the parcel, date of the delivery, result of the delivery, and the like.
During a long time use of the portable terminal device outside the delivery vehicle, the battery in the portable terminal may lose the power. When this occurs, the portable terminal device is no longer usable for inputting information. Further, there arises a possibility that the information already input to the portable terminal device may be lost.
In order to avoid such a loss of information, the portable terminal is usually mounted, after the delivery personnel has returned to the delivery vehicle, on a holder that is provided on the vehicle for recharging the battery of the portable terminal device. In stores or warehouses, too, the portable terminal is mounted on a fixed holder connected to a power line for recharging the battery when the portable terminal device is not in use.
It should be noted that a typical holder performs the function of recharging the battery and also the function of reading out the information that is input into and held in the portable terminal device. The recharging of the battery and the reading of the information can be conducted concurrently.
For the purpose of recharging of the battery, the holder includes a recharging terminal element for contact with a corresponding terminal element of the portable terminal device. Thereby, the rechargeable battery of the portable terminal device is charged by a large capacity battery of the vehicle. The details of recharging the battery is outside the scope of the present invention and further description will be omitted. There are various known circuits and procedures for recharging a battery.
In a holder of a portable terminal device for use in vehicles, there arises a problem in that a substantial vibration is applied to the holder when the vehicle is moving. As the portable terminal device is mounted only in a detachable state, the vibration may be amplified substantially.
When a severe vibration or shock is applied to the portable terminal device during the state that the battery of the portable terminal device is in a recharging process, there is a substantial risk that the portable terminal device causes a displacement in the holder and the positional relationship between the holder and the portable terminal device is changed variously. In the worst case, the contact of the terminal elements may be lost. Thereby, the recharging of the battery becomes unstable and insufficient.
In order to conduct the recharging process stably, it is necessary to maintain a constant contact state of the terminal elements between the holder and the portable terminal device, while conventional holder has suffered from the problem that such a constant contact state is difficult to be maintained. The same applies also to the contact terminals used for sending and receiving information.
When constructing a holder capable of securing a stable contact between the contact terminal elements of the holder and the contact terminal elements of the portable terminal device, it is necessary to avoid any contact of the contact terminal elements of the holder with the body of the portable terminal device as the portable terminal device is mounted or dismounted to or from the holder. When such a contact occurs, the fragile contact terminals may experience a permanent mechanical deformation. In addition to the foregoing, the holder should allow easy and quick mounting and dismounting of the portable terminal device so that the user of the portable terminal device does not feel any inconvenience in the use of the portable terminal device.